Suburbs/town-dwellers... how wide across is your lot?

[Janie Grace]

We are thinking of buying land and building. My dh really likes this lot that's a half acre. It's 80 feet wide, so it's narrow and deep. To me, when I look at an 80-foot wide lot, it seems SO narrow (we live on 10 acres right now). But I'm wondering if that's pretty normal. 

 

We would build a craftsman-style house that's narrow and deep (to fit the lot), like maybe 30 feet wide, giving us 25 feet on either side. Is that crammed in? How can I get perspective on what this would look/feel like?

 

[Plagefille]

Ours is 100 ft and that feels really wide compared to other places I have lived. Granted, when we lived in GA our lots were wide compared to here in the west.

[Element]

Ours is 60' wide x140' deep with another 100' of woods behind (city owned.) Our house is 37' wide. We have a single car driveway that can hold 3 cars deep. We lived in a townhome before this, so it seems like plenty of space for us! :)

Edited for clarity of depth/width

Edited December 11, 2017 by Element

[gardenmom5]

for a 20,000sqft lot - 80 ft is narrow.  most town/suburblots - are more like 8,000 or less sqft. - and an 80ft wide frontage is comfortably wide.

 

 

[Raifta]

We're 50 feet wide in one of the earliest suburbs of our city, now so central that's it's practically not a suburb.

 

Most of the lots around here even in the far suburbs are no more than 60 feet wide.  A lot of the ones in the early, now interior, suburbs are 35 feet wide.

 

One thing that makes a difference for us is that our house is not situated in the middle of the lot.  Depending on your building codes, you might be able to have a fairly narrow portion of land on one side and a much wider section on the other.  That's what we have and it makes for a much nicer yard (although we are also thankful to be friends with the really close neighbour).

[luuknam]

How can I get perspective on what this would look/feel like?

 

 

Not suburban, but 30ft. Basically, the width of the house (which is longer and taller than it's wide) + just enough space for a trashcan and the ability to walk past the trashcan on one side - on the other side, there is zero space. Btw, that means it's really narrow. (and, no driveway)

 

As for perspective, you could go to town and look around and measure (like, maybe measure how many paces, and see how long your paces are). Or, look at Google maps on the maximum zoom in (which is how I came up with 30ft - it looked more like 25 on Google, but it's got to be 30 - we're renting, so I never really got lot size dimensions for this place). 

Edited December 11, 2017 by luuknam

[luuknam]

When we lived in a small town, our lot was about 110 wide by 325 deep. Which was very wide (especially since the house was 1180 sq ft spread out over two stories). 

[luuknam]

Or, you can look up some places near where you're planning to buy on zillow or w/e - they list lot sizes (sometimes only acreage, sometimes actual dimensions). So, I was right - the house we're currently renting sits on a 30x125 lot. 

Edited December 11, 2017 by luuknam

[Catwoman]

I think the most important consideration is how it will fit in with the other lots in the neighborhood. If everyone else's lot is about the same width and the houses don't look too tightly-packed together, it's probably fine, but if everyone else's lot is much wider, your new house might end up looking kind of awkward by comparison.

[JIN MOUSA]

Our lot is 60' wide x 143' deep. The house is 33' wide, with 7' on one side and 20' (with one car driveway) on the other. I think our lot is slightly larger than average for this neighborhood. It's still considered suburb, but it is an older area, with houses built 60 to 80 years ago. 

 

I think what looks "normal" will depend largely on the neighborhood. My lot/house size would look really out of place in an area with 100' wide lots and 60' wide houses, just as it would look out of place in an area with 30' wide lots and 25' wide houses, but it fits in with our neighborhood.

 

So what are the other lots and houses like in the neighborhood where y'all plan to build?

[Scarlett]

We are thinking of buying land and building. My dh really likes this lot that's a half acre. It's 80 feet wide, so it's narrow and deep. To me, when I look at an 80-foot wide lot, it seems SO narrow (we live on 10 acres right now). But I'm wondering if that's pretty normal. 

 

We would build a craftsman-style house that's narrow and deep (to fit the lot), like maybe 30 feet wide, giving us 25 feet on either side. Is that crammed in? How can I get perspective on what this would look/feel like?

 

 

The lot we hope to build on is 71 wide and 150 deep.  That is about 1/4 acre.  This is the house plan we have picked out.

https://www.theplancollection.com/house-plans/home-plan-26347

[KungFuPanda]

Does it make me a bad homeowner if I don’t know the answer? I know it’s a rectangle, but not a very narrow one. My house is wider than it is deep.

[JIN MOUSA]

Does it make me a bad homeowner if I don’t know the answer? I know it’s a rectangle, but not a very narrow one. My house is wider than it is deep.

 

No. We bought recently and I have the survey in my emails. I was easily able to search and find mine, otherwise I wouldn't have known. 

[Scarlett]

The first house we bought was 40 X 140. That was very narrow.

[Annie G]

We live in town and our lot is about 60 feet wide. It's typical for our end of the street but at the other end the houses are newer and the lots are wider. 

 

Having 25 feet on each side of the house would be awesome. We have about half that now, and that is house to house, not lot to lot. We're pretty close together. 

[Scarlett]

If it is really half an acre at 80 feet wide that means it is about 270 deep.  Which does seem odd.  

[TheReader]

Our lot is approx. 1/4 of an acre, and is 60 ft wide and 150 to 190 feet deep (I don't know for sure, and I can't use our total sq. ft. to calculate b/c we have an odd section on the side that makes it a funny shape). In our suburban neighborhood, and around here, that's considered wider than average, and definitely deeper than normal. 

 

A lot that was 1/2 an acre, but only 20 feet wider than ours, would definitely seem narrow to me; I'd not particularly want a half acre shaped like that, I don't think, although depends on how you are able to build and what the other lots are like. 

 

Our lot feels like a great size, since it's one of the largest in our neighborhood (mainly backyard; width & space in front are uniform, but we have 100 ft behind our house before you reach the fence....having 6000 sq ft back there feels pretty nice, comparatively speaking). 

[3 ladybugs]

Ours is 55 feet wide. In that is our single car width driveway that goes beside our house. I think it said it was 106 feet deep too. However I live in New Jersey. I once figured out how many people should be living on our land with the population density in NJ of 1000 people per square mile and it was 10 I think. Right now we are at 5. I guess I am living high on the hog! LOL 

[kewb]

Our town is not known for it's large lots. Ours is actually pretty large for the town we live in at 60' x 110'.

[SamanthaCarter]

They vary within a small margin on our street, I think ours is no more than 70 ft. They look close, but not squished. It’s a pretty charming look actually.

 

 

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[Janie Grace]

I think the most important consideration is how it will fit in with the other lots in the neighborhood. If everyone else's lot is about the same width and the houses don't look too tightly-packed together, it's probably fine, but if everyone else's lot is much wider, your new house might end up looking kind of awkward by comparison.

 

There are 5 lots, all 80 feet wide. 

[Wheres Toto]

We have just under an acre and it's 100 feet wide.   Because of the way our road slopes down right at our driveway we can't even see our neighbor on one side.  The other side has a bigger lot and the house is set toward the back (ours is towards the front), so she doesn't feel close either.

 

We live in an area with a lot of lots where the houses are about 10 feet apart.

 

ETA:  Our house is 25 feet x 30 feet I think, 750 square feet so pretty small for the lot size.  We are also in New Jersey

 

ETA again:  It is very deep for its width but the back of the property slopes down to a river and is very wooded.  Gives it a nice out-in-the-woods feel.

Edited December 12, 2017 by Where's Toto?